You're right - my opinion is just an unpopular one. I don't think our defensive players at the time were good enough to take us to the next level and some of them are still here.

You won't see Guardiola or Klopp focus on defence too much either but they'll still win a lot of games, and in City's case trophies too. At the time, I felt our attacking players were being let down by our defensive players - a bit like the shite this season.

I like this guy. You spot on mate. I feel exactly the same. We should of stuck with him. All great managers have a period where fans want to get rid. They just need time. We needed better defenders and a better Centre midfielder but we were close.

Likes...

For all of his talk about what we did with the ball, it never felt like we had a clear plan in possession under Martinez. We used to pass into pressing traps pretty regularly and we conceded too many goals off of cheap giveaways as result. I also think that, just as with Koeman, Lukaku helped mask genuine chance creation issues.

Teams that effectively prioritize possession usually close the opposition down directly after they lose the ball for a few seconds before falling back into their defensive shape. We rarely ever pressed like this under Martinez, probably partly down to poor fitness, and we didn't have a good defensive shape either. That's a recipe for defensive disaster, whoever the players.

Our fitness wasn't good enough under Martinez. This showed up in two ways. (1) We weren't fit enough to apply pressure to our opponents which, as said previously, is important for a team that wants to play on the front foot. (2) Even when one of Martinez's plans worked to perfection, and he did have some good one-off plans, we were always a threat to fade around the 60th minute and throw the match away.

Martinez looked at the conversion rate from set pieces and wrote them off as an unimportant part of the game, choosing instead to focus on moving the ball (which, again, we really weren't all that good at). Set pieces are pretty well established now as a huge edge for clubs to prioritize them (https://statsbomb.com/2017/02/changing-how-the-world-thinks-about-set-pieces/), not to mention that we left ourselves susceptible to repeated punishment from corners, indirect free kicks, etc. by not working on them enough.

We're still terrible at transfers now but that doesn't excuse what Martinez/Reeves did. They wasted a lot of money on players Martinez knew (Kone and Alcaraz were never good enough, Robles needed a lot of work to look remotely competent) and had a tendency to fall in love with players that had massive flaws. Besic was signed on the back of a few good World Cup performances in midfield (Martinez says we had followed him for longer but I'm not buying it. What he would have seen in that time was Besic playing in defense.) We could have signed Jonny Evans, who would have fit our passing approach and been an experienced partner for Stones, but instead chose to risk that money on Funes Mori, who isn't as good on the ball and is prone to massive lapses in concentration. Niasse has his virtues (we've seen that this season) but he was never a fit for a possession team and he was never worth the money. And that's not to mention other hopeful punts like Tarashaj (where is he?) and Rodriguez (may as well have burned the £600k). I'll give him Lukaku, Barry, Deulofeu, McCarthy (I don't think many saw him flatlining the way he has), and Holgate (paying off now) but there's not a lot of good in there.

Even if you think the recruitment would have been fixed with the money we have now (I'm not buying it, but okay), poor fitness, poor organization, and a lack of attention to detail still would have let us down. Martinez wasn't turning it around.

Nah, we had one of the best seasons in recent decades in Martinez's first year. I wasn't one of his fans at all and I'm about as disinterested as you at the minute but let's not attempt to re-write history.

I didn't say it was at the beginning of Martinez' reign keep your knickers on. He had a good 7 months with us, shame about the rest

You're right - my opinion is just an unpopular one. I don't think our defensive players at the time were good enough to take us to the next level and some of them are still here.

You won't see Guardiola or Klopp focus on defence too much either but they'll still win a lot of games, and in City's case trophies too. At the time, I felt our attacking players were being let down by our defensive players - a bit like the shite this season.

Funny though Guardiola took one of those not good enough defenders 😅😅...but i dont know nothing about football cos i think idea of defending for Martinez is shite 😅

Also your allowed whatever view you want ...but to label those who differ as not knowing anything is just being silly .

You're right - my opinion is just an unpopular one. I don't think our defensive players at the time were good enough to take us to the next level and some of them are still here.

You won't see Guardiola or Klopp focus on defence too much either but they'll still win a lot of games, and in City's case trophies too. At the time, I felt our attacking players were being let down by our defensive players - a bit like the shite this season.

Not with me as I wanted to stick with Martinez but sadly he couldn't react to the pressure in the same way as Koeman and both were let down by players . Exactly how Guardiola would fair with little money ( and in hindsight Martinez spent very little ) and average players is anyone guess . The fear ( however unlikely ) of relegation sets the appropriate lack of respect and Moyes was lucky Moshiri wasn't in charge at the time he was Manager .

For all of his talk about what we did with the ball, it never felt like we had a clear plan in possession under Martinez. We used to pass into pressing traps pretty regularly and we conceded too many goals off of cheap giveaways as result. I also think that, just as with Koeman, Lukaku helped mask genuine chance creation issues.

Teams that effectively prioritize possession usually close the opposition down directly after they lose the ball for a few seconds before falling back into their defensive shape. We rarely ever pressed like this under Martinez, probably partly down to poor fitness, and we didn't have a good defensive shape either. That's a recipe for defensive disaster, whoever the players.

Our fitness wasn't good enough under Martinez. This showed up in two ways. (1) We weren't fit enough to apply pressure to our opponents which, as said previously, is important for a team that wants to play on the front foot. (2) Even when one of Martinez's plans worked to perfection, and he did have some good one-off plans, we were always a threat to fade around the 60th minute and throw the match away.

Martinez looked at the conversion rate from set pieces and wrote them off as an unimportant part of the game, choosing instead to focus on moving the ball (which, again, we really weren't all that good at). Set pieces are pretty well established now as a huge edge for clubs to prioritize them (https://statsbomb.com/2017/02/changing-how-the-world-thinks-about-set-pieces/), not to mention that we left ourselves susceptible to repeated punishment from corners, indirect free kicks, etc. by not working on them enough.

We're still terrible at transfers now but that doesn't excuse what Martinez/Reeves did. They wasted a lot of money on players Martinez knew (Kone and Alcaraz were never good enough, Robles needed a lot of work to look remotely competent) and had a tendency to fall in love with players that had massive flaws. Besic was signed on the back of a few good World Cup performances in midfield (Martinez says we had followed him for longer but I'm not buying it. What he would have seen in that time was Besic playing in defense.) We could have signed Jonny Evans, who would have fit our passing approach and been an experienced partner for Stones, but instead chose to risk that money on Funes Mori, who isn't as good on the ball and is prone to massive lapses in concentration. Niasse has his virtues (we've seen that this season) but he was never a fit for a possession team and he was never worth the money. And that's not to mention other hopeful punts like Tarashaj (where is he?) and Rodriguez (may as well have burned the £600k). I'll give him Lukaku, Barry, Deulofeu, McCarthy (I don't think many saw him flatlining the way he has), and Holgate (paying off now) but there's not a lot of good in there.

Even if you think the recruitment would have been fixed with the money we have now (I'm not buying it, but okay), poor fitness, poor organization, and a lack of attention to detail still would have let us down. Martinez wasn't turning it around.

Agree with the fitness problems and if addressed, things could have been very different. Also think Evans would have been a huge upgrade on Jagielka/Distin.

Lukaku didn't mask chance creation issues. Lukaku was/is a great finisher, but very rarely did he create goals out of nothing. Arsenal (13-14), Chelsea (15-16) and City (16-17) off the top of my head in 4 seasons with us.

Worth noting we scored more than 2 of the top 6 in 2015-16. With a better quality of defender, on and off the ball, personally think things would have been different. As you say, recruitment was hit and miss and defence is probably where we struggled to recruit well. Jagielka and Distin weren't good enough to play the system well and Stones was just coming through.

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Likes...

Out of our last 5 managers, Martinez was my favourite, easily played the nicest football and would have a good stab at being out most successful (whilst not successfully winning anything ofcourse).His best was better than the rest and his worst wasn't as bad as the others.

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"I would never die for my beliefs...because I might be wrong"

Likes...

Ive said this before but friend of friend was hired as nutrition person for the start of koemans reign and was, I quote, ‘genuinely shocked’ at how bad the nutrition was at finch farm. The players didn’t have set meal times, didn’t eat together, had terrible fast food style meals.

I always had quite a rose tinted view on Martinez because it’s the last time I felt half optimistic about Everton, but hearing stuff like that totally put me off. Neglectful. And considering his worship of Guardiola’s style, dangerously ignorant.

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I knew that someday I was going to die, and I knew that before I died, two things would happen to me. That number one; I would regret my entire life, and number two; that I would want to live my life over again.

Out of our last 5 managers, Martinez was my favourite, easily played the nicest football and would have a good stab at being out most successful (whilst not successfully winning anything ofcourse).His best was better than the rest and his worst wasn't as bad as the others.

For me he wasted a good platform and a long spell, relatively for us (3 years), of not losing a preferred player.

Also his football, for me, wasn’t better that when we played well under Moyes. “Team goals” were probably better in Moyes’ last 18 months.

For me he wasted a good platform and a long spell, relatively for us (3 years), of not losing a preferred player.

Also his football, for me, wasn’t better that when we played well under Moyes. “Team goals” were probably better in Moyes’ last 18 months.

Yeah true.

Not too dissimilar to sam in that they generally rely on individual players creating something through sheer force of having the ball in the general vicinity of the box. No real system of chance creation.

Better in passive possession, and a much better counter attacking coach, but that’s arguably down to his better quality of players.

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I knew that someday I was going to die, and I knew that before I died, two things would happen to me. That number one; I would regret my entire life, and number two; that I would want to live my life over again.